RAF’S huge sacrifice laid bare at new memorial to the fallen
Last veterans gather to remember their lost friends
FOR decades they were denied the same level of recognition as their comrades in defeating Nazi Germany, their actions regarded as an embarrassing blemish on British conduct during the war.
The deaths of thousands of German civilians during the bombing of cities such as Dresden and Cologne even led some veterans of Bomber Command to hide their part in the Allies’ victory over Hitler.
But more than 70 years on the sacrifices made by those men in defence of their country have finally been recognised with the opening of the International Bomber Command Centre (IBCC), allowing men like Geoffrey Towers to pay his personal respects to his fallen comrades.
Yesterday Mr Towers, 93, a former Halifax gunner and member of 158 Squadron, scanned the memorial wall at the centre, in Lincoln, and placed a poppy near the name of Cyril Sibley, his friend and comrade, who was shot down then killed in captivity in 1944.
Mr Sibley was one of 57,861 members of Bomber Command and its ground crew, including women of the WAAF, killed during the Second World War, the highest casualty rate of any unit. By 1943 the aircrews – some barely out of their teens – had just a one-infour chance of surviving 30 missions. Only the infantry in the trenches of the First World War had a similarly high fatality rate.
So it was fitting that the centrepiece of the IBCC, opened yesterday in the presence of 300 veterans, is a spire reaching 102 feet towards the sky, its height representing the wingspan of a Lancaster bomber.
Beneath it is the Wall of Names listing all the men of Bomber Command who paid the ultimate price, alongside a Peace Garden.
“The spire is particularly poignant,” said Ronald Houghton DFC, a former Australian Halifax pilot. “It reminds me of the spire of Lincoln Cathedral which so often guided us home.”
Mulling over the losses on both sides in the battle for aerial and territorial supremacy he added: “War was simply nasty. I will never forget bringing down a German Messerschmitt 109. It came up beside us, and within 30 seconds we had released all of our eight bombs, and down he went.
“We had to, if we hadn’t, it would have been us.”
Such was the sense of embarrassment surrounding the civilian toll inflicted by the bombing raids on Germany – estimates range from 305,000 to 600,000 dead – that at the end of the war Winston Churchill distanced himself from Bomber Command’s contribution to victory.
Ironically, this embarrassment also led to an overshadowing of the humanitarian role played by the unit during the terrible winter and spring of 1945, when thousands of Dutch civilians were saved from starvation by food parcels dropped from the air during Operation Manna.
John Ottowell, a navigator on Lancasters, said: “It is really important to remember this – we saved so many lives because people in northern Holland especially were dying of hunger. It was a difficult operation because we had to fly very low, and slowly, but it had to be done. We had to feed the people.”
It took until 2012 for the men to receive a campaign honour. About 10,000 surviving Bomber Command veterans were given the award, bringing them into line with those of Fighter Command.
Among those at yesterday’s opening ceremony was 93-year old Len Manning, who was just 19 when he served as a rear gunner on a Lancaster in 57 Squadron. His plane was shot down by a German night-fighter over northern France on his third mission, targeting a railway goods yard. “I was burnt and the parachute was burning. I finished up with the Resistance for three months until I was liberated by the Americans, having had lots of skirmishes,” he said.
Rear Gunner Fred Hooker recalled the terror of bailing out of a burning Halifax over Munster, Germany, in September 1944.
“Suddenly, I was sitting in my turret in fresh air. There was no perspex around me and my Browning guns were trailing over the rear turret. I remember disconnecting my oxygen so I could get out and crawl to the cockpit,” he said. “I think I had been knocked out by an exploding shell until the air brought me round. I stepped into the fuselage into a mass of flames towards the rear of the aircraft and picked up my burning parachute.
“I bailed out. The next thing I remember was floating down to earth, rather too quickly, wondering what on earth was going to happen.”
These and other stories are now being told at the IBCC, where a digital archive centre has been created, holding records of more than 900 oral veteran testimonies – in addition to hundreds of documents, photographs, letters and other items such as log and operational record books.
Camilla Carlbom Flinn, a trustee of the centre, said: “Now they will be remembered. The purpose of the centre is to preserve the memories. We want our visitors to come here and understand the strength of the stories, so they are stirred into thinking about the rawness of war these men faced every day.”
Organisers said the opening of the centre was likely to be the last formal gathering of Bomber Command’s veterans, the youngest of whom is 92. Additional reporting by Louis Collenette
‘We want our visitors to come here and understand the strength of the stories, so they are stirred into thinking about the rawness of war these men faced every day’
To fly with Bomber Command during the Second World War was to run a greater risk than almost any other member of the Armed Forces. The attrition rate for crew was greater than for soldiers on the Western Front 30 years earlier. Yet for years, proper recognition of their heroism and sacrifice was overlooked, principally because the bombs they released over Germany killed so many civilians.
But Bomber Command crews were also given the task of attacking Germany’s air bases, troops, shipping and industrial complexes connected to the war effort. Almost half of the 125,000 personnel died and only one third reached the end of the conflict without being killed, injured or taken prisoner. They were all volunteers, from 60 countries, and the average age of those who served was 23.
Around the country there are monuments to many who fought in the war; even the animals that were killed are recognised by a memorial unveiled in 2004. It was not until 2012 that the Bomber Command memorial was finally erected next to Green Park in London. In Lincoln yesterday, close to where Bomber Command flew many sorties, the few hundred remaining veterans gathered for the opening of the new £10m International Bomber Command Centre. As well as a memorial garden, this will comprise a digital archive including more than 190,000 documents, photos and letters, described by one of the compilers as “a record of heroic, inspiring and truly incredible stories”.
There is one remaining wrong still to be set to rights. The Bomber Command veterans were, shamefully, never awarded a campaign medal. It is time they were.